State Health Workers Poised For Strike Today

Nurses, pharmacists and other health professionals who work for the state were poised early today to begin a strike over wage scales and other benefits.

The strike, which would affect Allentown and Wernersville state hospitals, Hamburg Center, county health offices and health facilities at Kutztown and East Stroudsburg universities, was voted upon last week by the members of the Pennsylvania Nurses Association after they rejected the latest offer by the state.

"We've not heard anything from the mediator," said PNA spokeswoman Deborah Saline. "Our plans are, the strike date was set, we plan to go ahead."

The union, which represents more than 3,200 non-supervisor workers and 600 supervisors at the 140 institutions, offices and university facilities, is seeking a wage increase close to the pay hikes granted most other state unions last year.

The main sticking point in the negotiations is over how a wage increase would be distributed. The union, saying nurses should be given professional status on the state's personnel scales, wants a new formula for disbursing the raises that would place nurses in new job classifications.

While it contends the changes would result in increases of 9.75 percent over a three-year contract, the state maintains that the changes would result in raises totaling 21 percent over the same period.

In addition, there are conflicts over vacation time, the number of consecutive days nurses can be ordered to work and mandatory overtime.

Nurses at the state facilities make an average of $22,500 a year, ranging from a starting salary of about $16,000 to the more than $30,000 paid to supervisors.

Michael Moyle, spokesman for state Secretary of Administration Murray Dickman, who is the state's lead negotiator, said the only way negotiations could begin would be for the union to move on the issue of job classification.

"We are willing to move (on wages)," Moyle said. "The only way there will be negotiations is if they tell the negotiator they have moved (their position)."

The exact time of the strikes at each work location is being set by the locals, PNA's chief negotiator, Richard Stober said last week when the strike plan was announced.

"We are anticipating wide-based support," said Fred Stull, education and research director for the PNA. "People are pretty mad out there."

Local facilities have already prepared for the manpower shortage.

"Part of our response is to use the supervisors and managers in the head nurse role," explained Dale Newhart, supervisor at Allentown State. "We fully expect the licensed practical nurses and the psychiatric aides who are members of a different union to be at work."

Newhart said the hospital employes about 47 LPNs and 150 psychiatric aids.

Lorraine Rohn, negotiator for psychiatric nurses in the northwestern region, considers it "a strike for the future." She explained that the strike is not only for economic reasons, but for such issues as vacation and sick time.

"We're uptight that the commonwealth is unwilling to bargain in good faith, and we resent the fact that we had to resort to a strike . . . we were forced to the wall," she said.

She estimated that about 80 nurses from Allentown State Hospital will be striking. Of that number, 58 are union members.

JoAnn Rahauser, negotiator for nurses dealing with mentally retarded individuals in the northeastern region, said the state nurses want the benefits and the pay that's offered in private sector institutions.

"We want quality so we can give good nursing care," she said.

As the deadline approached, the state Department of Public Welfare yesterday began to close the admissions offices at five of the seven state general hospitals.

The hospitals affected by the directive from Welfare Secretary Walter Cohen include Ashland and Coaldale state hospitals in Schuylkill County, Hazleton in Luzerne County, Scranton in Lackawanna County and Philipsburg in Centre County.

The general hospitals at Nanticoke in Luzerne County and Shamokin in Northumberland County are still admitting patients, Cohen said.

Cohen, who said the department reviewed each of the seven hospitals, called closing off admissions "the most prudent course of action at this time."

"Although the hospitals will lose revenues because of this action, the care, safety and well-being of our patients already at the hospitals is our most important concern," Cohen said in a prepared statement.

Cohen said patients at the state general hospitals may also be discharged or transferred to community hospitals if the need arises.

"This would be determined by the nature and length of any job action the nurses at each facility might take," he said.

Temporary workers to fill in for the nurses and other health professionals will be hired as needed at the facilities, Moyle said.

The decision on hiring will be done on a location-by-location basis, Moyle said.

Leaders of the nurses union have claimed the state will be unable to hire nurses for the temporary duty during the strike. If the state does hire temporaries, the union said, they will have to be paid more than what the striking nurses are asking for.

Negotiations between the union and the state began last summer, after the union overcame a challenge to its authority District 1199P of the National Union of Hospital and Health Care Employees.

Yesterday, that union issued a statement supporting the members of the PNA.

"The ridiculously low contract offer by the Thornburgh administration deserves to be rejected in the interest of both quality patient care and fair play to the state employees," the union said in a news release.

Members of the State College-based union will join the health care workers on the picket line and will collect funds for them, the news release said.